USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 33
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But Boudinot's factory was seized and confiscated, and the condemnation was sustained by a divided court, on appeal to the supreme court of the United States. This strange and anomalous decision stands out in solitude and unenviable noto- riety. But the court attempts to soften the injustice and rigor of the nation's violated faith, in the assurance that Bou- dinot had kept his skirts clean, and the suggestion that he ap- peal to congress for restitution. Judge Dooley, the great jurist and constitutional expounder, was president of the commission that negotiated the treaty of 1866, and as an act of justice to the Indian, agreed to the tenth article of the treaty, exempting him from taxation, and did not then, and I presume does not yet, 45
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doubt the binding force of that article. Congress did ulti- mately grant relief by conferring jurisdiction on the court of claims to settle and adjust the equities between Boudinot and the United States; and this tribunal, fifteen years after the injury, adjudged restitution. For many years he has advocated, with great learning and ability, the organization of a paternal government over the Indian territory, and a division of lands in severalty, coupled with the rights of citizenship, as the best solution of the great question now confronting the people of the United States. On these questions, at intervals during the last fifteen years, he has made many able arguments before com- mittees of congress - learned, comprehensive and statesman- like. In the history of his race he reads in the near future, annihilation, if wiser measures than have obtained in the past are not adopted to avert it. He prefers the process of absorp- tion to that of inevitable extinction. Fifty thousand Indians, surrounded by the most enlightened and progressive people known to the world, cannot, in the nature of things, long maintain an impassable wall; cannot long stay the tide of the higher civilization and restrain it from developing an agrier !- tural area capable of sustaining five millions of people.
Colonel Boudinot, like Belshazzar, sees the handwriting on the wall, and for years has labored with great ability to edu- cate his people up to his own intellectual standard. Ile favors the creation of a large school fund from the proceeds of their lands, to he held sacred, and guarded vigilantly. The more cultured Indians now come up to his views, and adopt his standard, but are largely in the minority. To the mind of the author the problem is now working out a satisfactory solution, without in- volving the breach of any treaty stipulation, or national faith. Physical and moral with natural causes now concur, and are focalizing in that direction, and consummation will follow in the near future, if tinkering politicians and our abundant sup- ply of ill-advised statesmen do not, by unwise legislation, post- pone the result. It may be postponed, never defeated. The goverment, in virtue of the right of eminent domain, and in aid of quasi public enterprises, has granted charters to a net-work of railroads, through and across the territory, which is ultimat- ing in the influx of a large population from the States, favoring
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the settlement of the territory. Many of these under the tri- bal laws are intermarrying with the Indians. Another potent factor is found in the number of good schools in the territory, where the native children are being educated. Education always antagonizes ignorance. Fifteen years ago our national law-makers, following the opposite arc of the Boudinot pendu- lum, became so conscientiously considerate of Indian rights and government obligations to them, as to forget the right of emi- nent domain, and consulted the " Old Tubby " Indian popula- tion, as to their opinions of railroad charters through the terri- tory.
This action of the government in consulting the ignorant element was founded in as much wisdom as that which es- tablished the Egyptian worship of storks and onions, after all the wise men joined the society of mummies, and went nap- ping on the Nile. But I am wandering too far ; my subject can speak for himself better than his biographer. Some years ago the Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees, and many other distin- guished members of the senate and house of representatives, united in a written request to Colonel Boudinot to deliver a lecture in Washington on the Indian races, from which che following extracts are taken :
" These tribes are rapidly wasting away, and soon, as in the east, the places in the west that know them now, will know them no more forever."
Ye say that all have passed away; The noble race and brave; That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave - That mid the forest where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout. .
Ye say their cone-like cabins
That clustered o'er the vale, Have disappeared as withered leaves Before the autumn gale -- But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore, Your rolling rivers speak Their dialect of yore.
"The report of the board of Indian commissioners contains the following language : . If the national honor requires the ob-
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servance of national obligations entered into with the strong how much more so with the weak ? To repudiate, either directly or by indirection, our solemn treaty stipulations with this feeble people would be dishonor meriting the scorn of the civilized world. These words are but as 'sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,' in view of the fact that congress has deliberately repu- diated the Cherokee treaty of 1866 in a vital particular, and has been sustained by the highest judicial tribunal in the land. If then, professed philanthropists think the repudiation of the last Cherokee treaty is 'dishonor meriting the scorn of the civilized world,' why is it no word of protest is heard ? Why do they not lend a helping-hand to reinstate the violated treaty ? It has been struck down in their presence without calling forth one word of remonstrance from them. I have more cause to com- plain of the violation of Indian treaties, perhaps, than any liv- ing man. In more ways than the loss of property have I suf- fered by that act, which, we are told by the very men who helped to commit it, is dishonorable, 'meriting the scorn of the civilized world.' Yet it is a fact accomplished. The tax- gatherer is sent to the civilized tribes by authority of congress and your courts to levy tribute for the support of this great country, in spite of the solemn treaty which stipulated it should not be done. Is it not right and just that we should have some voice in your government when you compel us to con- tribute to its support ? Then make us citizens and clothe us with the prerogatives of freemen ; arm us with the rights if you impose the responsibilities of citizens. Do this, and de- pend on it the Indian will bless you, if he but understands that he is elevated from the degrading rank of a subject to the elevated dignity of a citizen. You struck the shackles from four millions of slaves, and, while still dazzled by the full blaze of liberty, you girded them with the arm of citizenship, and bade them protect their new-born rights. You transformed the ignorant slave into an American citizen. Do as much for the Indian. Give him a voice in making the laws which are to govern him, and the right to sit on a jury which is to try his countrymen. Give him that representation which should go hand in hand with taxation, and do not longer trample on the laws and traditions of your race. Give the Indian those equal
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rights before the law which you concede to all other people. Arın him with the powers and privileges of an American citi- zen. Give him that title to his land which he can protect and defend. Then, and not till then, will he have a country which he can call his own; then, and not till then, will he be pos- sessed of indefeasible title to his home ; then, and not till then, will he have a home freed from the dark forebodings of the- future."".
One of the finest legal arguments I have ever read was made March 5, 1872, by Colonel Boudinot, before the house committee on territories, in favor of a territorial government for the Indian territory, and in reply to argument advanced in opposition. Another great effort was made before the same committee in May, 1873, in favor of the bill to organize the territory of Oklahoma. In May, 1866, he replied to the slan- ders of John Ross, before the commissioner of Indian affairs, in one of his happiest strains of phillipic and convincing logic. In one of his lectures in 1873 he says of John Ross : "He had but little Indian blood in his veins, was inspired by no savage virtues ; he was unscrupulous, sordid, grasping, loving power and wealth. He was possessed of great administrative ability, understood Indian character thoroughly, and never failed to turn it to his advantage. He died in Washington city, in 1866, after an unbroken reign of forty years." Of Hopoth- leyoholo he says, in the same lecture : "The bitter feuds ex- isting among the Creeks had their origin, as among the Chero- kees, in the cession of their lands east of the Mississippi, and removal to the Indian territory. McIntosh was chief of the party favoring a cession of their lands, while Hopothleyoholo bitterly opposed it. This remarkable chief was the uncom- promising foe of the white man. He is described by a writer in the time of the younger Adams, as 'a chief of rare abilities and great daring.' He was a powerful speaker, fluent as a fountain, and extremely vigorous in expression ; his imagery was original and beautiful, apposite and illustrative; his words and manner were passionate to wildness. I saw Hopothleyo- holo last in 1861. At that time his eye was not dim nor his natural forces, to appearances, abated. Though carrying the weight of nearly a century, he stood proud and erect as in his
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younger days, and gazed with a look of hate and regret at the progress of the white race. In the late war he carried his party to the side of the Union, whilst the other party followed the lead of the brave McIntosh into the rebellion ; but he was animated by hatred to McIntosh and not patriotism in this move. Hopothleyoholo was unsurpassed in ability, and as an orator was the peer of Logan and Tecumseh. He regarded the white man as his natural enemy, and hated him with a perfect hatred to the day of his death, which occurred at Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1863. He was actuated by the loftiest spirit of Indian patriotism, hating the civilization of the white man, and loving his people and the graves of his fathers with all the passion and fervor of his wonderful character."
There are many beautiful and striking passages in this lecture. Of his native language, he says: "The Cherokee language seems to be distinct and independent of all other tongues; it is smooth and soft, and when spoken, by females especially, sounds most musical. There are but two words in the language which require the touching of the lips to pronounce, those words mean water and salt, and have the sound of M. The Cherokees are the only Indians who have an origi- inal alphabet for their language. The Creeks and Choctaws use the English characters, but the Cherokees have an alphabet of their own, invented by a Cherokee who could not speak a word of English, his name was Slquoyah ; he was the Cadmos of his race, had none of the lights of science or civilization to guide him ; but, conceiving the idea of enabling the Indian to 'talk on paper' as he one day saw an agent of the United States doing, he shut himself in his cabin one year, and en- dured, like many reformers and inventors, the gibes and jeers of the ignorant and thoughtless, who all pronounced him crazy, until he came forth with a perfect alphabet, and established his claim to be ranked among the first inventive minds of the century of wonderful inventions. This alphabet was invented in 1822, and consists of seventy-eight characters, and strange to say is most easily learned by children." Colonel Boudinot is an able lawyer, a polished and refined gentleman, and possesses the most fascinating conversational powers. To these many ac- complishments is added a wonderful musical talent, and one of
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the most charming voices given to men. He is a Mason of the thirty-second degree.
His cousin, the sister of Stand Waitie, is reported to have been one of the most beautiful and charming of her sex. She married Henry W. Paschal, once associate justice of the su- preme court of Arkansas. Some years since he married one of the reigning belles of Washington, a beautiful and accom- plished lady. The author's little six-year-old boy, after seeing great numbers of Indians, pointed out Colonel Boudinot to one of his little playmates, as "the best Indian I ever saw." "How are you my pale face friend," was the uniform saluta- tion he extended the author during an intimate acquaintance of two years.
PLEASANT JORDAN.
BY HON SAM. W. WILLIAMS .*
In Mount Holly cemetery, Little Rock, to the left of the prolongation of Arch street, through it, near the southern bor- der of this lovely city of the dead, stands a modest head-stone, which has upon it that name, and below it, born in Henderson county, North Carolina, August 17, 1812, died May 27, 1863. This is all that is said of a man who was several times elected attorney-general of this State, who was for twenty years a practicing lawyer in Little Rock, a polished scholar, and lived a blameless life, beloved, and died regretted. A writer of forty years ago, who did much to preserve the historic revo- lutionary traditions of two States from utter oblivion, com- plained of two faults, which existed as results of the excessive . modesty of the southern people, as to their history ; one was, that at once, on the approach of death, to destroy all letters and papers that might give a hint of events through which they had passed; another was, that on our tombstones we put a name, and only two events which occurred to the person who bore it - birth and death. This habit is singularly illustrative in this and many other instances in Mount Holly cemetery.
His father was a Baptist minister and farmer, owning the acres he cultivated in the rich alluvial border of the French
* Written for this volume at the special request of the author.
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broad river, which was, until the manhood of our subject, within the limits of Bunkum county, North Carolina. Here, in this narrow, fertile valley, between the Blue mountains, in which the sparkling waters of this beautiful little river runs to mingle with other waters far away, Pleasant Jordan was born, and reared to manhood, receiving in the neighboring country schools the rudiments of a common-school education, working the while on the farm at such work as was necessary to make the crops, prepare them for market, and dispose of them in the neighboring markets. His ambition was to become a learned man ; this resolve he carried out. His kind parents fitted him out with the necessary clothing - no doubt much of it, as was then customary among well-to-do farmers, was the handy work of the mother's deft fingers, and he went into the neighboring county of Greenville, South Carolina, and matricu- lated in a classical school established upon the mannal-labor plan, where the pupils worked for their board, to develop the physical nature, a school then very much in vogue, and where some of South Carolina's greatest men were educated. He there had a classmate, Lawrence Orr, afterward a speaker of the United States congress, and United States minister to Russia. Mr. Jordan told some amusing stories on Orr. He would shirk the hours of work, and sit in the corner of the fence - boy as he was .- and tell his future plans of political life, and future expectations of going to congress, which, many years afterward, he did. At this school, which Mr. Jordan attended several years, he received a thorough classical educa- tion, and, after graduating there, he went into an adjoining county in South Carolina, and commenced an English and clas- sical school, common, at that day, in that country. Here he taught until he had accumulated enough means to enable him to enter the law office of Hon. Simpson Bobo, a prominent lawyer of Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he studied law. At this school, while Jordan was teaching, a tall, lank, raw- boned boy came up afoot, driving a little pair of mountain steers, and told Jordan he was from the mountains of Green- ville county, South Carolina, and wanted to sell his little steers to get money to go to school; on ciphering over it, it was found that the steers would not bring enough to pay for his
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tuition and pay his board, but the mountain boy, with his steers, were kindly taken by Jordan to his boarding-place ; with a generous-hearted, wealthy planter the matter was soon arranged, enough money was gotten for the steers to pay tuition, and the planter agreed to board the boy. He entered school, almost in the primer, but his strides in learning were a prodigy, and at the end of the session he was a fair English scholar. This boy was Joe Brown, afterward governor and United States senator from Georgia. I saw Senator Brown some years ago, and he made kindly inquiries about Mr. Jor- dan's family ; told me, laughingly, the same story that Jordan had told me years before. The old man retains still a very affectionate remembrance of his old-time teacher. After com- pleting his law studies at Spartanburg, in the latter part of 1842, he picked up his little economies, the remnant of his savings from tuition, and started with his brother Fleming westward, and landed at Little Rock in the winter of 1842-43. and entered the law office of Colonel Absalom Fowler, where he studied the Arkansas constitution, statutes and practice for a few months, and opened an office at Little Rock in 1843, while his brother Fleming went to Arkadelphia, the then new county seat of Clark county. The brothers, for some years, practiced in partnership in this way. The early death of Fleming Jordan ended the partnership, leaving a lasting and profound sorrow in the heart of the survivor, who had for the deceased the tenderest affection.
₹ Pleasant Jordan was eminently a self-made man, owing his success, mostly, to his integrity, energy, application, persever- ance and kind manners ; his talents were far above mediocrity, and his mental training was first class. He had a large, influ- ential and wealthy clientage, and maintained a respectable posi- tion in the face of a strong bar; accumulated a comfortable fortune by his practice ; was several times elected State's attor- ney for the fifth circuit, and ex-officio attorney-general of the State, which offices he filled with honor and distinction. His arguments as a lawyer appear in our supreme court reports from the 7th to the 23d Ark., inclusive. He was in politics a whig, yet, such was his personal popularity, that he never was beaten but once, by a democrat in a strong democratic district,
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and at last was allowed to run without opposition, in the hope- lessness of success in opposition to him. He was five feet ten or eleven inches high, had black eyes, jet black hair and whiskers. He possessed a genial, kindly and cheerful disposi- tion, and that sincerity and directness which are, happily, the ordinary characteristics of well-bred farmers' boys; this was the secret of his great personal popularity. He was an enter- taining companion. He would divide his last farthing with a friend, and suffering and want found in him sympathy and help. He was a Baptist in religion, but there being no church of his order at Little Rock at that time, he joined the Christian or Campbellite church, and lived his religion in every-day life. He had a rich, musical voice, and was a ready, easy, earnest and effective speaker. He was very fond of vocal music, at which he was himself an adept. Once I was rooming with him and Judge Clendennin in an out county ; we had been from home four weeks on the circuit ; just before retiring for the night, he stood up before the fire and began to hum in a low voice, and, suddenly throwing back his head, he began, full voiced, to sing Switzer's song of Home. The frame of mind of a homesick young lawyer, as I was, the stillness of the night, the clear, rich tones of the singer, the peculiarly touching character of the sentiment, and the sweetness of the air, all riveted upon my mind forever the occasion, and its principal actor. It is a picture with me now, and in opera or in concert I have never heard music so sweet as that solo. In 1851 he married Miss Sallie E. Howell, the daughter of Hon. Seth Howell, of John- son county, who still survives him. Mrs. Judge B. C. Brown is his only surviving daughter; two little girls lie with him. He left surviving, two sons, Howell and Lee, who are still living. His health began to fail in 1862, but he and his friends believed that time and care would restore it, but in May, 1863, in the midst of these hopes, he suddenly and rapidly sank to the grave.
HON. W. C. BEVENS, BATESVILLE.
W. C. Bevens was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1806, of English parentage in both lines. Loss of his father threw him on his own resources in early youth, but he was ambitious and accomplished a good academic education. He
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began preparation for the bar early in life, but gave it up to embark in a gold mine that did not come up to glittering ex- pectations. His next venture was in the mercantile business at Greenville, South Carolina, where wealth crowned his efforts beyond reasonable expectation, to be dashed to pieces in the great financial crash of 1837, and the entire loss of a cargo of goods at sea. These disasters drove him to Texas, where, in 1840, he found employment, first in the civil and then in the military arm of the government. After this he became a school teacher ; again wooed and embraced his deserted spouse (the law), and was admitted to the bar in Houston in 1843. Being compelled to seek a higher altitude, he left Texas in 1846, and located at Batesville, Arkansas. Soon after his arrival he was appointed final receiver of the State Bank by Governor Drew, and the appointment of attorney for that branch soon followed, and continued until the business of the bank was wound up. In 1853 he stepped aside for a little political rec- reation, and became a member of the Arkansas legislature. In 1856 he was elected circuit judge, and served the people in that capacity four years, with honor and credit to himself and the State. Judge Bevens was an ornament to the bench and bar, and to the great body of society. A strict Presbyterian, the creed of his church furnished the rule of his daily conduct. The Hon. J. W. Butler, present judge of the Batesville cir- cnit, married the daughter of Judge Bevens, and Governor W. R. Miller married another daughter. W. A. Bevens, a talented son, survives him. Judge Bevens died at Little Rock, on the 28th of September, 1865.
COLONEL JAMES RUSSELL PETTIGREW, FAYETTEVILLE.
Colonel James R. Pettigrew was born in Hempstead county, Arkansas, October 19, 1829, the son of the late Hon. George A. Pettigrew, a member of the legislature from Washington county in 1840-'42. In 1830 his father moved to Washington. county, where the son resided the remainder of his life. Ile was well educated in the English branches at Ozark Institute and Arkansas College. After some experience in mercantile pursuits, he entered the law office of Major W. D. Reagan, and was admitted to the bar at Fayetteville in 1832. Soon
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after he married Miss Allie, the daughter of his preceptor, and was then admitted to partnership in the very extensive and lu- crative practice of his father-in-law, which continued until 1877, when the latter moved to Texas.
In 1859, in conjunction with Colonel E. C. Boudinot, he founded the Arkansian, a democratic journal, published at Fayetteville until the war caused its suspension. His next ven- ture in journalism resulted in establishing the Sentinel at Fay- etteville, which he owned up to his death, in October, 1886. He raised a company for the Confederate service, which he entered as captain and was soon promoted for gallantry in the field to lieutenant-colonel. In one of the great battles in the west he fell, severely wounded in the head, whilst leading his regiment in action, and his life was long despaired of, but he ultimately re- gained his normal physical and mental condition. At the close of the war he resumed his law practice in connection with Major Reagan. In 1866 he was elected to the seat in the legis- lature once honored by his father, and did all a hopeless minority could do to break the force of the odious legislation inaugurated and carried out by the unscrupulous and pestilen- tial carpet-bagger under the Murphy government and the re- construction acts of congress under President Johnson's admin- istration. He was sent by this legislature with other commis- sioners to Washington to intercede with the executive and congress for the admission of Arkansas into the fellowship of States, but the party in ascendancy at that juncture rejected the overture. Colonel Pettigrew was a modest, courteous, unas- suming and polished gentleman, possessed of much magnetism when he chose to exert it. In 1879 the democratic majority in the senate of the United States elected him journal clerk of that body, which he held until President Arthur, in 1882, appointed him as the democratic member of the Utah Commission. His appointment in this, as his election in the preceding in- stance, was largely due to his polished and engaging address. In 1874, four years after the decease of his first wife, he mar- ried her sister, Miss Annie Reagan. In October, 1886, he went to Waco, Texas, on business, and there died suddenly of conges- tion on the 18th. A large concourse attended his funeral at Fay- etteville, the author being one the mourners, whither he
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